


The Ranger and the Bones

by hatfights



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:42:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27970202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatfights/pseuds/hatfights
Summary: Park Ranger and Yellowstone Magic outfielder Annie Roland finally has some times to chase down some leads in her quest to catch the giant bear that plagues the parkpark. This is what she finds on one of her investigations.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	The Ranger and the Bones

Annie cussed under her breath as the jeep she was in bounced over over the rocky landscape of Yellowstone National Parkpark. As she swung the wheel around a pile of granite boulders jutting out of the hillside, a deep, unearthly chuckle emanated from beneath the hood of the jeep. She growled and whacked the dashboard with her broad fist. “Cool it, wagon. It’s a long way back to the ranger station, and if we overturn on these rocks, I’m not the one that’s gonna be trapped upside down like a turtle. Leaving you back out here in the woods would be a blessing.” The chuckling stopped, replaced by a grumbling that gradually returned to the regular engine noise as she crested a small hill into a cliffside overlooking the Lamar river. The jeep was almost more trouble than it was worth; a minor demon was bound to it, but the wizard had checked it out and deemed it safe, even though it still had a tendency to take the bumpiest path whenever possible. But Annie needed to get where she was going fast. Siesta was coming to a close in a day or two, and she wasn’t any closer to tracking down her eternal foe: the massive and mysterious bear that plagued the park. 

All week she’d followed up on lead after lead, submitted to the main park office in the tips box she’d set up on her desk. There was never time to go through them during the usual routine of the season. Blaseball never stopped, after all. But she finally had had time to pull out all the anonymous tips, smoothing out the twenty nine paper slips and plotting out an investigation on the big map. Twenty two of the tips had just turned out to be good old fashioned dead ends, either just a regular bear or an inconsiderate tourist. One of them just said “IT’S YOU,” which was bizarre and rude. One had been folded in on a piece of gum that she was sure came from the goat, but she couldn’t prove it. Three had actually turned something up: one was just the herd of magma elk that reappeared every spring, nothing exciting there. One was a previously undiscovered and unlogged family of mushroom folk who had colonized a vending machine. She had made a note that they were not to be disturbed and moved on. The third real tip had turned out to be this very jeep. And so here she was, following up on a tip from a spell scout that had been hiking along the river and spotted something monstrous lurking in the treeline. But as Annie hopped out of the jeep, the earth crunching beneath her boots, she couldn’t see anything as she started her investigation, scanning the brush and poking with her walking stick when anything caught her eye. She spent an hour hiking up and down the length of the clearing looking for anything irregular or out of place. But other than a hawk watching her intently, she couldn’t find anything. Gesturing with two fingers between her sunglasses and the hawk, as if to say “I’m watching you” she smiled and sighed, heading back to the jeep. Another dead end, she thought. But just as she reached for the door handle, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, and she turned suddenly. Something other than the redtail was watching her.

Scanning the field once again, she felt it most strongly centered on a shadowy thicket of douglas firs. As she peered closer and took a few tentative steps forward, she heard it. A whisper in the back corners of her skull. It wasn’t words, exactly. But it was a persistent whisper, that began to grow in volume, louder and louder, until it was filling her head. It never got overwhelming, but any time she tried to focus on what the voice was saying, it slipped away from her like sand. She leaned on the jeep for support as she stared harder at the dark nothing between the firs and tried to make sense of what she was hearing. Occasionally she heard a snippet of a word or phrase, but mostly it was just voices making noise. Dozens (hundreds?) of voices all muttering and murmuring and sighing into a buzz that never quite coalesced into words. She could recognize little bits of Shoshone and English and Spanish and German that made their way through, but also languages she had picked up from living in the park for so long: raccoon and bison and sandhill and hoopsnake and jackalope. 

All of these voices turned in and around on each other into a low buzz that, suddenly without warning, began drawing memories from deep within her mind. Memories of camping under the stars, of holiday dinners with the team, of antiquing for a new boat for her collection. Happy memories. And as she relived them, she felt the voices draw one particular one to the front of her mind. A fellow scout was telling her a silly knock knock joke while they fished.

Knock, knock  
Who’s there?  
Hike  
Hike who?  
I didn’t know you liked Japanese poetry!

The kid in the boat doubled over at his own joke, and Annie couldn’t help but giggle too, in the memory and in the present. She stood there next to the jeep and doubled over herself, laughing at the silliness of the dumb joke and the sheer delight she felt from hearing it again. The voices in her head seemed delighted too, and unearthed another one, this time from a sassy little girl whose family had been camping in the park years ago.

Knock, knock  
Who’s there?  
Gorilla  
Gorilla who?  
Gorilla me a hamburger!  


“God!” she said, wiping tears from her face. “How can a joke be so dumb and so funny?” She sniffed and stood, looking again at the dark area between the firs. “Come on out, whoever you are! If you can make me laugh this hard you can’t be that bad!”

The voices quieted, suddenly. She could sense some movement as the whatever-it-was prepared to show itself, and as she peered closer from behind her sunglasses, she noticed something small and white zip past her feet, heading towards the firs. Before it disappeared she caught a glance of… was that a spine? The spine of what she thought might have been a hare wriggled through the grass into the trees, which were finally parting to let a looming figure through.

As it pushed through the branches, Annie struggled to make sense of what she was seeing. It was huge, at least seven feet tall, walking on four of what could technically be called legs. It was made entirely of chalk-white bone, of more species than even the experienced naturalist could identify. She was fairly certain that the spine was from a bison, but she also saw what could be some wolf vertebrae, and what looked like a fox skull wedged in between. The swooping rib cage was clearly mostly bear and moose but also dozens of smaller ribs and even a full rattlesnake skeleton. Its back legs were from what she suspected was an elk but also, alarmingly, human femurs and terminated in hooves from multiple ungulates. A tail tipped in an egret skull hung behind it, and its massive forearms terminated in hands made of bear paws and cougar claws and eagle talons and what looked like an owl skull for a finger. There was a flurry of movement as the shallow breastbone and clavicle cluster sprouted dozens of new bones to form a low slung neck that terminated with an upside down pronghorn skull, which turned its dark horns towards the frightened park ranger as the thing began ambling her way. 

The voices in her head were not relaying any hostile intentions towards her, but she was couldn’t help but be terrified, her eyes widening as she watched the thing draw slowly closer. She’d seen a lot of weird stuff during her time in the park, but a giant bone monster was a new one and, frankly, a bit much to handle. She wasn’t thinking clearly when she reached into the jeep feeling for something to defend herself with, suddenly aware of how small and soft she was compared to this behemoth of bone and horn. As she desperately felt around the backseat, not daring to take her eyes off the creature, her hand found the reassuring shape of a blaseball. Gripping it firmly, she chucked the ball in a panic, where it clonked harmlessly off the creature’s chest.

As soon as the rawhide had left her hand, she knew she had made a mistake. The ball landed on the hard earth with a thump, rolling a few feet away, and the faceless pronghorn skull turned to watch it curiously. Its attention diverted, Annie took the opportunity to scramble into the jeep and start the engine. The whispers in her head had all but quieted as the creature regarded the blaseball and then, alarmingly, her. But as it turned its attention back to the ball, the snap and crack of reforming joints rang out as the creature, imitating her, repositioned its pelvis underneath itself and stood upright. On its hind legs it was at least nine feet tall, but it delicately reached forward and scooped the ball into one of its enormous claws. It regarded the tiny orb briefly before curling its huge hand around it, rearing back, further than looked possible. As it reached the apex of its windup, the ranger watched the left arm (southpaw, Annie thought) crack and reform into at least four elbows. Then without warning, it whipped its entire body forward with unnatural speed. The four elbowed arm lashed forward, faster than she could see, releasing the ball and launching it like a shotgun blast across the valley. Annie almost immediately lost sight of it, but a plume of dust that had to be where it landed shot up on the opposite side of the valley. Simultaneously impressed and terrified, Annie decided she’d seen enough. The whispers now felt confused as it turned to watch her put the jeep in gear, but the creature didn’t try to follow her as she threw it into reverse and left the valley. Even the jeep didn’t complain as she zoomed through the boulders, making a beeline for the nearest ranger station. She checked the rearview and saw the giant shuffle its way back into the woods where it came from, its bony form folding back into nothing. The whispers faded from her mind, and she couldn’t help but feel bad as she remembered how they had tried to make her laugh with her own jokes before she’d let her fear take control of her. She’d have to come back and get to know the creature better. Things were always more than what they seemed in Yellowstone. Plus, with an arm like that, the thing might even have a shot at playing for the team. Weirder things had happened. She downshifted the jeep and crossed a small stream, resolving to talk to the wizard, or maybe even the goat, about it tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> This idea sprang fully formed into my head, that Annie knew Bonk before they replaced her, and that their connection is what led to them taking her place on the team after she was incinerated.
> 
> Some Bonk headcanons here that I don’t think anyone else has w/r/t their last name. Basically I had to figure out how they tell jokes while being nonverbal and before they learned sign language. I also think that their bones come and go as needed and they all come from creatures who have died in the area, including people. Hope that wasn’t too weird!
> 
> I DID NOT edit this so sorry if it's rough I just had to get it out!


End file.
